--Ministering Spirits / Angels To Protect Us

--How Not to Forfeit Your Soul

Part of why Jesus' flesh-and-bones arrival on the scene was so disruptive for people was that his words, his actions, his attitude, his very person communicated a far different message than the one everyone had come to love. As we've established, humankind always has taken to the self-help bent, but as it relates to self, Jesus had only one thing to say: "Deny yourself."-Mark 8:34 / Through Jesus we get gain through loss.

-HUH??-
Deny ourselves? Was Jesus serious? How are we supposed to get ahead, make the cut, rise above, pass muster, blaze our trail in this big bad world?

Still, He stood firm with His claim? "If you are going to follow Me, you 'will' deny yourself."

Incidentally, this claim came just before the forfeit-his-soul bit in Mark 8. By way of the fuller context, Jesus had called a crowd over that included his disciples and said these words to them?
"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (vv.34-38)

Clearly, in Jesus' mind, there is a connection between denying ourselves and not forfeiting our souls. Between denying ourselves and following Jesus Christ as Lord. There is a connection between denying ourselves and saving our very lives.

We are called to put others first and ourselves last. It is in giving that we receive. That is 180 degrees from the ways of the world. It is by laying ourselves down that we are lifted up. It is in our very denial of self that you and I are fulfilled. ~~~~
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